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Begin New Search Topic Economics Publishing Institution Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy

1. Innovative Clusters & New Work: A Case Study of TaskRabbit

Author:
Emily Isaac
Publication Date:
03-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
In the past five years, San Francisco has become home to dozens of new online and mobile “service networking” companies that claim to be “revolutionizing” the way work gets done. Making up what has come to be known as the “platform economy,” these technology companies provide the platforms for online and mobile marketplaces in which users can buy and sell their goods and services. Together, these “platform economy” companies make up a concentrated innovative cluster in the San Francisco Bay Area, and, more specifically, San Francisco proper. One of the sharing economy’s pioneers and largest success stories, TaskRabbit Inc. allows users to outsource small jobs and tasks to local contractors—or, in company lingo, neighborhood “Taskers.” Launched out of Boston in 2008, TaskRabbit is just one of many tech startups that have left Boston for the San Francisco Bay Area. Since relocating to San Francisco, the company has received $37.5 million in venture funding, is available in 20 cities, and reportedly has 1.25 million users and over 25,000 Taskers. Indeed, TaskRabbit exemplifies the immeasurable benefits of strategically locating a firm in an industry cluster.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, Science and Technology, Communications, and Labor Issues
Political Geography:
United States

2. Building on Complimentary Assets in a Unified TCP/IP World

Author:
Martin Kenney and Timo Seppälä
Publication Date:
12-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
The contemporary competition in the smartphone industry is an ideal setting for studying Schumpeterian creative destruction, the role of the complementary assets, and the strategic use of technology platforms. This current creative destruction is particularly interesting because the current convergence from previously separate industries is pitting firms with differing business models from the old telecommunications world against the operating system winners of the old personal computer, and competitors from the new internet world. This paper utilizes insights from the literature on complementary assets and technology platforms to understand the completion in smartphones. This paper contributes a broadened understanding of the contemporary industry convergence occurring with Internet and cloud computing at its unifying center, and with intelligent communications devices at its edges. Furthermore, this paper extends the current academic discussion of the changes in the mobile telecommunications industry to consider the possibility that cloud computing will integrate a plethora of new devices that will include personal computers, smartphones, the internet-enabled television, and a nearly infinite number of other devices that will provide data to the cloud.
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, Industrial Policy, International Trade and Finance, Markets, and Science and Technology

3. Venture Capital and Clean Technology: Opportunities and Difficulties

Author:
Martin Kenney and Andrew Hargadon
Publication Date:
04-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
In the last half - century, venture capitalists have financed many of the most important new U.S. technology-based firms and industries. Most recently, venture capital has been touted as a key investor and driver of a new clean technology future. This paper examines the characteristics of successful venture capital investing and the structure and dynamics of clean technology markets to predict whether venture capital is the best model for financing a clean technology transition. We identify the following three key characteristics of technologies and markets in which venture capital can be successfully invested. First, the firm's markets must be large and rapidly growing. Second, the firm's solutions must be scalable, with the particular characteristic that a firm's growth in revenue (and valuation) significantly outpaces the capital cost of achieving that growth. Third, there must be the potential for large and rapid payoff, as either a public stock offering or acquisition by another firm. In the U.S. clean technology market, with the exception of energy being a large market, in nearly all cases these characteristics do not hold. For these reasons, a venture capital model for funding clean technology innovation is unlikely to be successful and the imposition of venture capital goals on clean technology firms may even be harmful to their survival. The current Obama Administration's strategy of providing enormous loan guarantees to a few chosen venture capital ‐ financed firms is misguided because it is likely to truncate the chaotic business model search that characterizes the formation of new industries.
Topic:
Climate Change, Economics, Energy Policy, International Trade and Finance, and Markets

4. Who Captures Value in Global Supply Chains?

Author:
Jyrki Ali-Yrkkö, Petri Rouvinen, Timo Seppälä, and Pekka Ylä-Anttila
Publication Date:
02-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
Available statistics tell us little about the economic consequences of increasing global dispersion of production processes. In order to shed light on the issue, we perform grass roots detective work to uncover the geography of value added in the case of a Nokia N95 smartphone circa 2007. The phone was assembled in Finland and China. In the case when the device was assembled and sold in Europe, the value-added share of Europe (EU-27) rose to 68%. Even in the case when it was assembled in China and sold in the United States, Europe captured as much as 51% of the value added, despite of the fact that it had rather little role in supplying the physical components. Our analysis illustrates that international trade statistics can be misleading; the capture of value added is largely detached from the physical goods flows. It is rather services and other intangible aspects of the supply chain that dominate. While final assembly – commanding 2% of the value added in our case – has increasingly moved offshore, the developed countries continue to capture most of the value added generated by global supply chains.
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, Industrial Policy, International Trade and Finance, and Markets
Political Geography:
China, Europe, and Finland

5. Barcode Empires: Politics, Digital Technology, and Comparative Retail Firm Strategies

Author:
Bartholomew C. Watson
Publication Date:
02-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
Like other service sectors, information technology has dramatically altered the growth and character of the retail trade sector in the affluent economies. Nevertheless, significant variation exists in the typical strategies of retail firms in different countries. This article explores this variation and proposes both an ideal type and an explanation. It argues that the problems of markets and hierarchies in retailing were set in motion by a series of political fights starting in the 1960s and 1970s. This demonstrates that once again that technical outcomes are not determined by the technology itself, but by social and political rules. Future technology platforms, such as e-commerce of mobile commerce, should be expected to follow similar political logics. As retailing firms spread around the globe, this has important implications for national competition policy.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, Science and Technology, and Communications

6. Toward Institutional Innovation in US Labor Market Policy: Learning from Europe?

Author:
Tobias Schulze-Cleven and Henry Farrell
Publication Date:
07-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
What keeps US labor market institutions from more effectively helping the nation cope with the current economic crisis and secure its future prosperity? What is the scope for politically feasible innovation in US labor market policy? These are crucial policy questions. As a result of the global financial crisis, the US unemployment rate climbed into double digits and has remained higher than in many European countries. The US is experiencing the highest level of unemployment for a generation and the highest rate of long-term unemployment for more than half a century. American families are suffering from financial hardship without any fault of their own, and many of the currently unemployed will find it hard to re-enter the workforce during the recovery. Nor is the government easily able to use current programs to help those seeking work. Even though policymakers have launched new initiatives during the past year, the US remains almost uniquely weak among advanced industrialized democracies in its lack of policy programs to support the populace in successfully engaging with the labor market.
Topic:
Economics, Markets, Labor Issues, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

7. From Religion to Reality: Energy systems transformation for sustainable prosperity

Author:
John Zysman and Mark Huberty
Publication Date:
09-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
There are compelling and varied arguments for moving to low-carbon, high-efficiency energy systems. Reducing emissions to limit or avoid climate change leads the public debate, but reduced dependence on imported energy, avoidance of conflicts over energy resources, and the rising price of fossil fuels also motivate action. Nevertheless, the potential cost and difficulty of making the transition to a new energy system have generated substantial opposition from entrenched economic interests and consumers alike.
Topic:
Climate Change, Economics, Energy Policy, and Markets

8. Reconsidering the Bayh-Dole Act and the Current University Technology Licensing Regime

Author:
Martin Kenney and Donald Patton
Publication Date:
05-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
The Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 has been hailed by policy-makers and scholars as a critical policy innovation for ensuring the commercialization of inventions resulting from results of federally-funded research. This paper suggests that the current implementation of Bayh-Dole through university ownership of all researchers' inventions is not an optimal system in terms of economic efficiency and social interests regarding the rapid commercialization of technology. The current regime, within which the university owns researcher inventions, is plagued by ineffective incentives, information asymmetries, and contradictory goals for the university, the inventors, potential licensees, and university technology licensing offices (TLOs). These structural uncertainties lead to licensing delays, misaligned incentives among parties, and delays in the flow of scientific information and the materials necessary for scientific progress. For the very best TLOs these difficulties can be overcome, but for the average TLO this misalignment of incentives creates suboptimal outcomes in terms of technology transfer. The institutional arrangements within which TLOs are embedded are so perverse that it has encouraged a number of them to become income maximizers and operate in a manner similar to what pejoratively have been termed patent “trolls.”
Topic:
Economics, Education, Government, and Science and Technology

9. Innovation and Adaptability in a Digital Era: How Wealthy Nations Stay Wealthy

Author:
Tobias Schulze-Cleven, Bartholemew C. Watson, and John Zysman
Publication Date:
05-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
The challenge for the advanced countries is to stay wealthy in a rapidly evolving and ever more competitive global economy. As a new digital era emerges and the mechanisms of value creation – i.e. the engines of productivity and growth – change in volatile marketplaces, wealthy nations have to find new ways to adapt. Particularly in Europe, successful adjustment has often been posed as a choice between social protection and market flexibility. In this paper, we recast this all too common framing and emphasize instead that competitive advantage for the advanced countries may be built through appropriate social policy. Upon clarifying the character of competition in the emerging digital era, we argue that the long-standing strong social protection systems particularly in many European countries could be leveraged to these countries' unique advantage in the emerging digital era. With such benefits as promoting social peace and assisting people in meeting new labour market demands, social protection systems have an important role to play in helping societies reorganize existing economic structures in support of successful adaptation to new competitive conditions.
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, International Political Economy, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
Europe

10. A Case for Non-Globalization? The Organization of R in the Wireless Telecommunications Industry

Author:
Alberto Di Minin and Christopher Palmberg
Publication Date:
11-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
The offshoring of manufacturing has been the most visible ingredient of economic globalization in recent years. However, the rapid change in the global division of manufacturing has overshadowed another – and perhaps even more significant phenomena – namely the internationalization of the R and inventive activities of firms.
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, International Political Economy, and Science and Technology